Be a World Hero Better than a Billionaire

One person can make a difference for millions through some concentrated thought, fine leadership and excellent communications. Find out how others have done it. Learn how to do it yourself! Help others to become world heroes and heroines as well.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

A World Hero in the Making

Good morning, Future World Heroes and Heroines!

Are you feeling motivated this morning? I certainly know that I am as I write about this exciting topic.

It's often surprising how little it takes to become a world hero or heroine.

Here's an example.

One of my Rushmore University students is a Christian missionary pilot in Africa. In that role, he helps with a variety of tasks including taking needed food and medicine into deprived areas, transporting out people who are injured or ill so they can receive needed medical are, and bringing traveling missionairies to provide training and support for missionaries operating in fixed locations in the interior.

He kept commenting to me that he wanted to take a course on better scheduling his flights. He may not fly for two weeks and then will fly every day for a week. I thought that was his point.

As the course began, I pressed him to come up with a more powerful focus for creating a 2,000 percent solution (a way to accomplish 20 times as much with the same time and effort -- think of this as being like cloning yourself 20 times but with no additional cost or effort).

The pilot mentioned that it made no sense to him that some Protestant missionary locations might receive three educational missions in a week while other locations hadn't seen an educational mission in years. From talking with Catholic missionary pilots, he knew that such visits were more evenly spread among the Catholic missions.

I suggested that he ask the traveling Protestant missionaries why this occurs. It turns out that they had no idea whether a given location had received other traveling missionaries or not. They were responding to requests for aid. Those missions that asked the most missionaires for aid simply got the most aid. Those who didn't ask, got very little aid.

The pilot got in touch with various councils that help coordinate the various Protestant churches and interested them in the idea of putting up a Web site that will describe all of the Protestant missions in the world, which sorts of aid each has received and when, and what their on-going needs are.

Such a site is now planned to be up and running in 2006. While it's too early to know what the effect will be, it's possible that millions will receive God's Word sooner than would otherwise occur.

Should that happen, it seems to me that the pilot will have become a World Hero. Yet I doubt if he will see himself that way. This humble man was simply curious about why his flight plans made no sense.

In many cases, that's all it takes: Standing up and taking the time to do something about a situation that needs fixing.

Here are some ideas where your assistance could make a difference in the near-term:

1. Establish a non-profit foundation that can focus attention on creating more world heroes and heroines along the lines of the examples I described among my students...

2. Find people who would like to learn how to become world heroes.

3. Raise funds to pay for poor people who would like to become world heroes but need some funding to do so.

E-mail me at ultimatecompetitiveadvantage@yahoo.com with your offers of help. Use "I Want to Help World Heroes" as your subject for the e-mail.

About Me

I'm a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and attended Harvard Business School to study marketing while in law school. I'm a member of the bar in Massachusetts.
I teach graduate courses in entrepreneurship and strategic management on-line at Rushmore University (www.rushmore.edu).
I head a consulting firm (www.mitchellandco.com), that specializes in entrepreneurship, finance and strategy.
I am a co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution (www.2000percentsolution.com), The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, The Ultimate Competitive Advantage (the most highly praised business book by customer reviewers in its first year), and The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook.
I head a pro bono site for improving world progress (www.fastforward400.com).
I have headed The Billionaire Entrepreneurs' Master Mind (see http://billiondollarbusiness.blogspot.com) since 2006.